Monthly Archives: June 2012

Every summer now for the past 10 years, independent filmmakers in San Francisco have picked up the flamboyantly flung gauntlet thrown by the 48 Hour Film Project and sailed it as a victory flag in tribute to their filmmaking skills.

As part of the oldest and largest time-based filmmaking competition in the world, San Francisco filmmakers once more set out Friday (June 8th) to make a short film in just two days, and 49 of those teams returned on Sunday night (June 10th) to turn in films that will be seen in the theatre starting this Wednesday (June 13th).

The filmmakers were divided into 4 screening groups. Each group will have their films shown at The Lumiere Theater in San Francisco sometime over the next two weeks. Each night the films from that group will show twice, once at 6:45 and once at 9:15.

Here are the dates and times:

Group A – June 13 (tickets here) [update: tickets available at the door or from the theater]

The team distribution for the screening groups can be found at the SF 48 Hour Film Project city page. If you can’t make it to all of the screenings, you can also meet many of the filmmakers at the Wrap Party on July 12th at the Sugar Cafe, or at the Awards and Highlights Show on July 15th. Details will appear here, you can count on it.

When teams compete in the 48 Hour Film Project, they begin their competition weekend by drawing a genre randomly from a hat. (It’s happening in SF tonight at 715 Harrison St, 6:30pm).

One of the most feared genres across all cities and throughout the years has been Musical or Western. Teams that draw this may choose between making a musical or a western movie, and they get style points if they’re fearless enough to try for both.

When Chinese Takeout drew the genre in San Francisco, they dove in head first to create this compelling modern-day western.

The film won Audience Choice Award for its screening group, Best Film for San Francisco, and was screened at the Short Film Corner in Cannes. We guess that maybe it came out okay.

You can see what Chinese Takeout created for this competition year if you attend the screenings on June 14th at The Lumiere Theater in San Francisco.

We welcomed the Music Video Race to San Francisco last month as they kicked off their event series. They chose the City By The Bay for reasons obvious to those of us who love the music and the film scene here. Competitors were challenged to make a music video in just 48 hours. (sound familiar?)

One of the 48 Hour Film Project legacy players (It Donned On Me) entered the competition and gave us this gem.

The filmmaking teams were paired with the musicians randomly and we have to say that IDOM found themselves with breathtakingly good fortune.